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Jim.
    Finally we get to a clearing. There are a lot of cabins with smoke coming out of their chimneys. The woodsmoke has a thick pleasant smell.
    Jim goes to check on Mary but reports that she is asleep.
    “I can wake her,” he says uncertainly.
    “Don’t think of it,” says my mother, and then there is an awkward pause.
    “Why don’t you sit down.” He motions us to a fallen tree. “I just have to tell some people you are here.”
    We sit under the stars. It is much warmer than Saskatchewan. Maya clings to my mother’s side. There are noises in the woods. Then we see a cabin door open and a family with startled and curious faces races out carrying bedding. It is obvious that Jim is clearing a cabin for us. This is uncomfortable but what can we do? We do not want to sleep in the car.
    Jim stays awhile longer in the cabin and then another woman comes out, also throwing a curious squinty-eyed look at us although she can hardly make us out in the dark. I think we are the most exciting thing to happen here for a while.There is no Walmart or roller rink or even movie theater for miles and miles. I bet they all get sick of each other’s faces. This consoles me somewhat when Jim emerges and motions us over and says, “You can stay here.”
    “I hate to inconvenience those people,” says my mother uncertainly.
    “Oh no, they got plenty of room at her sister’s place. They don’t mind. They’re glad you came to see Mary. People’d do just about anything for Mary.” He shows us the cabin and says he will see us in the morning.
    The cabin is warm. The beds look freshly made. I am hoping someone changed all the sheets. It is one thing to be outlaws. It is one thing to have adventures and recklessly take what comes. I am all for that but at the end of the day I want fresh linens.
    My mother is looking at the beds. I bet she is thinking the same.
    She heaves a sigh, unpacks and gets the boys into their pajamas. Maya and I change in the bathroom and I am glad to see that my mother has already put Hershel and Max in a small bed together. I will have a bed to myself.
    In the close warm dark, with the sound of the fire, the crackling logs, the wind that whooshes through the pines and down the chimney, the spray of rain and ice against the roof in gusts, the sounds of movement outside, human or animal, impossible to tell, we lie content. Occasionally there is the soft sound of someone moving in his bed or a log shifting position. Quiet pockets of life in the still room. I think of the huge overarching starlit sky of the woods and wonder how it is to be up there in that great silence looking down at Earth. Maybe our explosions and tidal waves and wars are just quiet pockets of life in a larger still room.
    I hear the howl of a wolf again. Thank goodness Maya is already gently snoring. Something primitive in me knows that it is safer to sleep huddled this way in one room at night with a fire. I wonder if my mother and Ned are asleep yet or if their thoughts fill this room with images the way mine do. I am at home here in a cabin. I would not know this if adventure had not led me here. It is not a place I would ever have thought to come on my own. Sometimes it is good to have things happen to you outside of your control. There are parts of yourself you would never discover otherwise. Butsometimes it feels that in these new places, as much as I discover new parts of myself, I lose parts of the old Jane. The one who was safe and secure and happy on the beach.
    Do my mother’s thoughts and mine tangle in the night? Because I hear her gentle voice say, “Ned, sometimes at night I hear the sound of the ocean.”
    “That’s the wind in the pines,” he says practically, and I hear him roll over and start to snore.

    In the morning Jim takes us to see Mary. My mother wants Ned to go alone first but he wants to bring us all and introduce us. When we get inside her cabin it is dark and a little smoky and close. Perhaps they are